Hello there, I thought i'd make this post on my experiances of using gentoo after one month. It might encourage newbies to not give up on the first hurdle, as Gentoo has so much to offer!

Before christmas I was a fed up Windows user, it held my hand too much, tagged me along with everything. Was I learning anything from using windows? Nope, the only thing I felt that was productive was Visual basic, which i've became quite well trained in. So after wanting more out of my computer, I decided to move onto the Linux route, starting with Mandrake.

I used Mandrake for 3 days, and uninstalled. Don't get me wrong, mandrake is nice, but its just another "windows alternative", it holds your hand too much. So I went in search of a distro that offered more, and gentoo seemed the most appealing. Tricky, brain puzzling install and lots of configuration - Something I could get my teeth stuck into. So after downloading the .isos, I started my journey into gentoo land.....

Ok yes, I followed the instruction manuel on installation, and failed a few times. Actually I counted 37 installs/reformats, but I did it. I installed gentoo succesfully with the help of this forum, and the use of my brain. I'd learned so much out of just installing the operating system, like how to use the commandline's commands etc. After re-booting I was presented with a commandline, and it was there where my gentoo installation came to life.

Firstly I had to install my network drivers (because of a bug in the install disc) and re-compile my kernel, With the help of this forum (again!) I managed to connect to the internet and start emerging everything I possibly could. Starting with KDE/Xfree, which wouldn't work on startup because I needed to configure my Radeon graphics card, which took some in-depth reading and configuration, and then BANG, I was on! KDE loaded up and I was presented with a GUI.

Now I know people might hate me for saying this, but I made my installation of gentoo what is today, The developers (I praise them highly) made the base, I built over it. Personalising it with my own touch, adding crazy fonts and themes, running commands at startup. It's my own Gentoo, I made it. I think thats why Gentoo is so special, You make it what you want it to be. Just want a simple internet browsing system? Simple. Want a music storing system? XMMS and GRIP is the answer my friend.

I'm happy with my setup, I made it what it is today, and with a bit of effort its well worth the time. So if there's any newbies out there who are about to give up, don't fret, just ask the amazing user community on here! I managed to get my soundcard, graphics card and net connection working just from the friendlyness of the people on here.

So after install? What now? Well i've got a brilliantly stable O/S, loads of cool tools and I know exactly what I want. I only dual boot into windows for games, which is a shame in my opinion, I would of loved to have linux fully DirectX compatible, but we can't have everything!

For gaming, I would first try if you can get it working under wine/winex. Feels better in linux than in windows, can't say why . If it doesn't work, then I would switch to windows, and only then. I got Diablo 2 working under winex, so I haven't a windows install. But it might change if I really buy sacred...

Wow. 37 times?!?! Talk about dedication. I was bitching when I hit my 3rd install (during my new to gentoo days). I found, when my installs failed, that it was always me straying from the install doc, not intentionally.

Glad you gutted through it. Hope you like Gentoo. I have nothing negative to say about it... other than this. Waiting for a stage 1 install to complete is like sitting and watching paint dry on a rainy day in Seattle. But that's a different story. =)

It was a stage 3 install, and yes I did go through 37 installs, its because I kept going wrong and doing something stupid. I made my own little "installtion pack" thing with all the notes I had written down from my install, so if anything happens I just whack out the install manuel and follow it through.

Still, Gentoo rocks and Portage is the best thing since sliced bread in my opinion.

It was a stage 3 install, and yes I did go through 37 installs, its because I kept going wrong and doing something stupid. I made my own little "installtion pack" thing with all the notes I had written down from my install, so if anything happens I just whack out the install manuel and follow it through.

Still, Gentoo rocks and Portage is the best thing since sliced bread in my opinion.

I commend you...you are more dedicated than most of us. _________________while(true) {self.input(sugar);}

I love gentoo. I could never go back to windows. I've had this install for about 2 weeks, and it is better than windows in many, many ways. My favorite game also has an excellent linux port. RtCW:ET. weeeeeeee its fast as well.

It was a stage 3 install, and yes I did go through 37 installs, its because I kept going wrong and doing something stupid. I made my own little "installtion pack" thing with all the notes I had written down from my install, so if anything happens I just whack out the install manuel and follow it through.

Still, Gentoo rocks and Portage is the best thing since sliced bread in my opinion.

I commend you...you are more dedicated than most of us.

But not me. How many people do you know who started with LinuxFromScratch, and moved on to Gentoo because LFS was too buggy? And took three goes to get LFS working and is on Gentoo installation number 20-ish?

[NB: LFS takes much, much, much, MUCH longer to install than Gentoo...]_________________Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction.

the first time i tried i didn't get anywhere and gave up for awhile and used SuSE for a year. but i decided to try Gentoo again. i downloaded LiveCD #1 only to have it give me errors. ultimately i downloaded the LiveCD 3 times and burned 5 coasters but finally got a working (and bootable) livecd. my second failed attempt was totally my fault, i did a stupid noob mistake (because i didn't RTFM).. but i didn't give up...

the first one that succeeded was a stage3 and i built pretty much everything onward. the problem was i didn't like some of my choices i had made.. i wanted to try the XFS filesystem, and i wanted to have better CCFLAGS.. so i fdisk'd my first successful gentoo and rebuilt from scratch and stage1 with the whole bootstrapping process. but it went successfully and without any pain.

i love my gentoo install now, it's fast and fully optimized for my CPU. for lack of a better word it's sexy and eloquent this Gentoo. i know everything on this system and there is great satisfaction knowing that it's ~my~ gentoo. what i mean is.. my gentoo build isn't anything like anyone elses, it didn't come off an assembly line. gentoo is quite simply THE BEST, period._________________Pimped out
http://pimpress.com
Registered Linux User #346075 http://counter.li.org/

Now I know people might hate me for saying this, but I made my installation of gentoo what is today, The developers (I praise them highly) made the base, I built over it. Personalising it with my own touch, adding crazy fonts and themes, running commands at startup. It's my own Gentoo, I made it. I think thats why Gentoo is so special, You make it what you want it to be.

The truth is that you made your own distro using the tools provided by Gentoo. After you boot your install for the first time and add to it, your install becomes different to everyone elses. Nobody hates you for realising that.
The Gentoo devs provided the tools to make it east to do._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.